Sunday, March 01, 2009

The World Heritage List was established under terms of the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Culture and Natural Heritage adopted in November, 1972 at the 17th General Conference of UNESCO.

The Convention states that a World Heritage Committee "will establish, keep up-to-date and publish" a World Heritage List of cultural and natural properties, submitted by the States and considered to be of outstanding universal value.

One of the main responsibilities of this Committee is to provide technical co-operation under the World Heritage Fund for the safeguarding of World Heritage Sites to States Parties whose resources are insufficient. Emergency assistance is also available under the Fund in the case of properties severely damaged by specific natural or man-made disasters or threatened with imminent destruction. See List of World Heritage in danger.

The Committee named 12 sites in 1978, 44 in 1979, 26 in 1980, 28 in 1981, 24 in 1982, 28 in 1983, 22 in 1984, 31 in 1985, 18 in 1986, 42 in 1987, 36 in 1988, 7 in 1989, 17 in 1990, 23 in 1991, 21 in 1992, 32 in 1993, 29 in 1994, 29 in 1995, 37 in 1996, 46 in 1997, 30 in 1998, 48 in 1999, 61 in 2000, 31 in 2001, 9 in 2002, 24 in 2003, 34 in 2004, 24 in 2005, 18 in 2006, 22-1 in 2007, 27 in 2008. * *Small discrepancies in numbers may be due to different methods of numbering sites, and overlapping of sites into two countries.